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The Ministry of Listening

Sometimes the best help we can give is a sensitive heart and a listening ear. Let's remember to listen. Anton Chekhov understood a newly bereaved parent's compelling need to talk about their loss. Here are excerpts form his short story, Misery. "With a look of anxiety and suffering Iona's eyes stray restlessly among the crowds …

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J.R. Miller Sorrow makes deep scars; it writes its record ineffaceably on the heart which suffers. We really never get over our great griefs; we are never altogether the same after we have passed through them as we were before.

No surrender

An excerpt from Never Ceasing: God’s Faithfulness in Grief ... So, I must wait, but waiting does not have to mean stagnating. The Lord still has business to conduct in His universe. There are people yet to be born and souls yet to be saved. The time I have left is shorter than it feels; …

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fireworks Just For Me

Just For Me

Bouncing around at the base of the hill, across the river that lay frozen between the fireworks techs and us spectators on the dock, was a light. A flashlight. A very bright flashlight. I saw the stream of light widen and play upon the hillside. Then the beam narrowed into a tightly focused square-shaped beam. …

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The Nearness of God

Grieving is difficult, exhausting work that can become counterproductive if indulged in overmuch. There comes a time when sorrow and anguish are not enough anymore. Not that it wears off, or grieving gets easier. It is just that I have come to an awareness that sorrow is not getting me anywhere. I see that my …

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The Fear of Forgetting

Yes, it's normal. We are terrified of forgetting them. Afraid that if we let go of that horrible moment when our child died, that it will be like they didn't exist at all. The pain is tremendous, but early in our grief we can't seem to help wanting to stay right there in the past …

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The Most Important Thing

While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, Thy sons and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest brother's house: And, behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young men, and they are dead; …

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The First Week

Here is another short excerpt from my book Never Ceasing: God’s Faithfulness in Grief It is the most trying week of my life—physically exhausting, emotionally grueling. I am thankful for everyone who comes to pay their respects and make sure we eat well. I am thankful for every single gift that is sent to us …

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Never Ceasing book cover

My Book is Finished

My book, Never Ceasing: God's Faithfulness in Grief, is now available for purchase. Buy Now I began writing in early 2016 just after Hans left us for Heaven and started publishing this blog in September of that year. Just about five years later (almost to the day) my book is now ready to share in …

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The Story of a Mother

A fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen "Young woman embracing a thorn bush"Kay Rasmus Nielsen (March 12, 1886 – June 21, 1957)Denmark A mother sat by her little child; she was very sad, for she feared it would die. It was quite pale, and its little eyes were closed, and sometimes it drew a heavy deep …

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Walk, Don’t Run.

Sorrow is better than laughter; for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. Ecclesiastes 7:3 When you are sitting there alone and you are weeping, and the longing for your child is a thick and expanding heaviness in your chest threatening to erupt from your throat in silent, choking grief. When …

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Blessings of Bereavement

Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word. Psalm 119:67 BLESSINGS OF BEREAVEMENT by J. R. Miller, 1896 At first we would be disposed to say that no blessings can come out of bereavements. But the grace of God has such wondrous power, that even from the saddest desolating of …

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Anton Chekhov | Misery

I was deep into a collection of short stories written by Anton Chekhov when I turned the page and was confronted with a story entitled Grief. I briefly considered skipping it, but I am so glad I didn't. Mr. Chekhov understands a bereaved parent's compelling need to talk about their loss. Every public domain site I …

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No Words

  “How are you doing?” There are no words in any language that are sufficient to the task of expressing what I am experiencing.  That is why, in some cultures, the women wail when someone dies.  Even wailing is inadequate.  There are some things that cannot be halved by sharing them.  Grief is one of …

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But God Got His Son Back

Some among the bereaved feel that, because Jesus rose from the dead, God the Father did not experience the grief one associates with child loss or that the death of His Son, Jesus, was easier for Him because of His foreknowledge of the Resurrection. Was God’s pain less than mine? It humbles me to think …

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